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“This experiment definitely wouldn’t be considered ethical today,” psychology professor Julia Byrnes noted with a devilish smile.
“Back in the good ol’ days, we were able to really probe the limits of human knowledge,” Byrnes explained, projecting images of abused children and animals. “Today, you have to go through a bunch of squares at the IRB.”
“Ethics boards today would never let you tell kids that their parents aren’t coming back for them,” Byrnes chuckled. “But guess what? Ethics didn’t exist then!”
“I mean, look at this study,” she emphasized, turning to a slide detailing a 1920s neurobiology experiment. “This work really shaped the domain as we know it today. The snakes were probably unnecessary, but it was a different time.”
At press time, Byrnes was recruiting participants for an innovative new study.
